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Descriptif du lot
Painted in 1993—the year she made history by representing Japan at the Venice Biennale, becoming the first woman artist to do so—Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin is a vibrant iteration of two of her most iconic motifs: the pumpkin and the ‘Infinity Net’. The work depicts a plump, ribbed pumpkin in vivid red with black polka-dots, which dilate from pinpoints to large circles over the swell of its surface. It sits in a black ground webbed with red lines, conjuring the ‘Infinity Net’ paintings which first won Kusama acclaim in early-1960s New York. Both the pumpkin and these psychedelic patterns were foundational to her art, which was informed by hallucinations she experienced since childhood. The pumpkin represented a warm, comforting presence that countered the self-dissolution expressed in her endless fields of webs, dots and nets.
As a ten-year-old growing up on her family’s seed nursery in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama began to experience overwhelming visions of patterned fabric coming to life, and of flowers and pumpkins speaking to her. These recurrent episodes were a response to intense emotional disturbance. She later channelled the patterns into the repetitive, therapeutic process of painting her densely-patterned ‘Infinity Nets’, which she began after moving to New York in 1958. Amid this turmoil, the pumpkin held a special place in her imagination. ‘I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form’, she recalled. ‘What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness. That and its solid spiritual balance’ (Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, London, 2011, p. 76).
Having made some early pumpkin paintings at art school during the 1940s, Kusama revisited the motif following her return from America to Japan in 1977. She merged its form with webs and dots in drawings, paintings and prints throughout the 1980s, and, for her acclaimed presentation at Venice in 1993, exhibited Mirror Room (Pumpkin) (1991): a polka-dot space containing a large mirrored cube filled with a seemingly infinite field of small papier-mâché pumpkins. As her worldwide fame grew, she developed her pumpkin sculptures in an array of sizes and media. Well-known examples include the open-air Pumpkin (1994) that sits at the end of a pier on the ‘art island’ of Naoshima, and the dazzling 2016 mirror room All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, a reflective chamber filled with glowing acrylic gourds.
The pumpkin’s solid, reassuring beauty manifests Kusama’s belief in the curative power of art. Through her meditative, repetitious techniques and motifs, she was able to explore, transform and overcome her traumatic visions. While deeply personal, her works have a universal resonance. The present Pumpkin’s serene, organic warmth is unmistakable: hanging like a planet in dazzling space, it becomes an avatar for the magic and mystery of life itself. ‘I adore pumpkins’, says Kusama. ‘As my spiritual home since childhood, and with their infinite spirituality, they contribute to the peace of mankind across the world and to the celebration of humanity. And by doing so they make me feel at peace … Giving off an aura of my sacred mental state, they embody a base for the joy of living; a living shared by all of humankind on the earth. It is for the pumpkins that I keep on going’ (‘On Pumpkins’, poetry reading, London, 2014).
As a ten-year-old growing up on her family’s seed nursery in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama began to experience overwhelming visions of patterned fabric coming to life, and of flowers and pumpkins speaking to her. These recurrent episodes were a response to intense emotional disturbance. She later channelled the patterns into the repetitive, therapeutic process of painting her densely-patterned ‘Infinity Nets’, which she began after moving to New York in 1958. Amid this turmoil, the pumpkin held a special place in her imagination. ‘I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form’, she recalled. ‘What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness. That and its solid spiritual balance’ (Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, London, 2011, p. 76).
Having made some early pumpkin paintings at art school during the 1940s, Kusama revisited the motif following her return from America to Japan in 1977. She merged its form with webs and dots in drawings, paintings and prints throughout the 1980s, and, for her acclaimed presentation at Venice in 1993, exhibited Mirror Room (Pumpkin) (1991): a polka-dot space containing a large mirrored cube filled with a seemingly infinite field of small papier-mâché pumpkins. As her worldwide fame grew, she developed her pumpkin sculptures in an array of sizes and media. Well-known examples include the open-air Pumpkin (1994) that sits at the end of a pier on the ‘art island’ of Naoshima, and the dazzling 2016 mirror room All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, a reflective chamber filled with glowing acrylic gourds.
The pumpkin’s solid, reassuring beauty manifests Kusama’s belief in the curative power of art. Through her meditative, repetitious techniques and motifs, she was able to explore, transform and overcome her traumatic visions. While deeply personal, her works have a universal resonance. The present Pumpkin’s serene, organic warmth is unmistakable: hanging like a planet in dazzling space, it becomes an avatar for the magic and mystery of life itself. ‘I adore pumpkins’, says Kusama. ‘As my spiritual home since childhood, and with their infinite spirituality, they contribute to the peace of mankind across the world and to the celebration of humanity. And by doing so they make me feel at peace … Giving off an aura of my sacred mental state, they embody a base for the joy of living; a living shared by all of humankind on the earth. It is for the pumpkins that I keep on going’ (‘On Pumpkins’, poetry reading, London, 2014).